Do you Spring Clean your software?

It’s that time of the year where we throw open the windows, dust everything off and do a spring clean of what needs to be thrown out. In this process we assess what in the house is useful and what things are not working very well.

The same Spring Cleaning should be done with your in-house technology too…

Just because it has worked for the past 5 or 10 years does not mean your technology is still the right or best tool for the job today, as technology quickly changes throughout the seasons!

I am often amazed when I have the opportunity to audit a customer’s tools and processes to discover how old some of their software is and the amount of work-around they have to perform. Including the customization they have personally made to those tools, and then they have to run a script on the data before it can be opened, and then they do a transform outside the tool after job is complete, and then… The list goes on and on and on…

These extra tools, scripts and processes that were added to their base tool when needed was right for the task 10 years ago, and may still get them a decent solution, but it does not mean it is still right for what we need today. With the requirements seasonally changing, those same tools are now becoming too cumbersome to maintain. But to my continued surprise, instead of looking at whether there was a better tool to fit those new or growing requirements, some would rather continue adding more dust to their current tool set.

So just like spring cleaning your home to clear away the extra winter dust and those useless things, you should also stop for a second, take a breath and look around at what is going on with your in-house technology. I’ll guarantee you, it will be a breath of fresh air!